The Royal Alexandra Children's Hospital is a

children's hospital A children's hospital is a hospital that offers its services exclusively to infants, children, adolescents, and young adults. In certain special cases, they may also treat adults. The number of children's hospitals proliferated in the 20th ...

located within the grounds of the

Royal Sussex County Hospital The Royal Sussex County Hospital is an acute teaching hospital in Brighton, England. Together with the Princess Royal Hospital, it is administered by the University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust. The services provided at the hospital in ...

in Brighton on the south coast of England. It provides outpatient services, inpatient facilities, intensive care and a 24-hour emergency care service for children referred by

GPs The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of the global navigation satellite sy ...

and other specialists. It is managed by the Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust. The hospital originally stood on Dyke Road in the Montpelier area of Brighton. Local architect Thomas Lainson's red-brick and

terracotta Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based unglazed or glazed ceramic where the fired body is porous. In applied art, craft, construction, and architecture, terracotta ...

building, in the Queen Anne style, was opened by the

Prince A prince is a male ruler (ranked below a king, grand prince, and grand duke) or a male member of a monarch's or former monarch's family. ''Prince'' is also a title of nobility (often highest), often hereditary, in some European states. T ...

and Princess of Wales in 1881. It remained in use for more than a century before being replaced by a new building at the main Royal Sussex County Hospital site. The new facility opened in June 2007, and has won architectural awards for its innovative design. The future of the Dyke Road site has been uncertain since the move to the new premises was first considered in 2001; Lainson's buildings and their later additions were threatened with demolition until 2009, when a developer was refused

planning permission Planning permission or developmental approval refers to the approval needed for construction or expansion (including significant renovation), and sometimes for demolition, in some jurisdictions. It is usually given in the form of a building per ...

to replace the hospital with flats. Brighton & Hove City Council's latest planning briefs state that any redevelopment of the site should incorporate Lainson's original building.

History

Western Road and Dyke Road

Hospitals dedicated to the treatment of children have existed in England since the mid-19th century: the first opened in

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a populat ...

in 1851. By this time, Brighton was a rapidly growing town with a history of proactively establishing social, educational and medical institutions. In response to a meeting at Brighton Town Hall on 23 June 1868, local doctor R.P.B. Taaffe founded the town's first children's hospital, the Brighton Hospital for Sick Children, at 178 Western Road on 3 August of that year. Two years later, it moved to the former Church Hill School, a disused building on Dyke Road;

Bishop of Chichester The Bishop of Chichester is the ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Chichester in the Province of Canterbury. The diocese covers the counties of East and West Sussex. The see is based in the City of Chichester where the bishop's sea ...

Richard Durnford conducted the reopening ceremony on 14 July 1871. Although this had 20 beds in the main ward, an eight-bed ward for bone disorders and an

isolation ward In hospitals and other medical facilities, an isolation ward is a separate ward used to isolate patients with infectious diseases. Several wards for individual patients are usually placed together in an isolation unit. Design In an isolation un ...

for infectious diseases, within ten years it was felt necessary to move to another larger building. Thomas Lainson, who entered practice in the early 1860s, was a prolific and eclectic local architect. By 1880, his works included residential terraces in the

Italianate The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian ...

style,

places of worship A place of worship is a specially designed structure or space where individuals or a group of people such as a congregation come to perform acts of devotion, veneration, or religious study. A building constructed or used for this purpose is somet ...

in diverse styles (

Romanesque Revival Romanesque Revival (or Neo-Romanesque) is a style of building employed beginning in the mid-19th century inspired by the 11th- and 12th-century Romanesque architecture. Unlike the historic Romanesque style, Romanesque Revival buildings tended to ...

and

Neo-Byzantine Neo-Byzantine architecture (also referred to as Byzantine Revival) was a revival movement, most frequently seen in religious, institutional and public buildings. It incorporates elements of the Byzantine style associated with Eastern and Orth ...

), a

High Gothic High Gothic is a particularly refined and imposing style of Gothic architecture that appeared in northern France from about 1195 until 1250. Notable examples include Chartres Cathedral, Reims Cathedral, Amiens Cathedral, Beauvais Cathedral, and ...

working men's club Working men's clubs are British private social clubs first created in the 19th century in industrial areas, particularly the North of England, Midlands, Scotland and South Wales Valleys, to provide recreation and education for working class ...

and an Italianate

villa A villa is a type of house that was originally an ancient Roman upper class country house. Since its origins in the Roman villa, the idea and function of a villa have evolved considerably. After the fall of the Roman Republic, villas became s ...

. His buildings often incorporated multicoloured brick and dressings of

. In about 1881, he went into partnership with two of his sons, Thomas J. and Arthur, who worked together as ''Lainson & Sons''. New Hospital for Sick Children, Brighton Wellcome L0003271

New Hospital for Sick Children, Brighton Wellcome L0003271

Lainson won the commission for the new hospital in 1880 by submitting a design for a Queen Anne style building of red brick and terracotta. His sons joined him in designing and building it; this lasted until 1881 and cost £10,500 (£ in ), and the hospital was formally opened on 21 July 1881. The

and Princess of Wales and their daughters Princess Louise, Princess Victoria and Princess Maud were in attendance; Dr Taaffe changed the name of the hospital to the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Sick Children in honour of the Princess of Wales (Alexandra of Denmark). The new building stood at the junction of Dyke Road and Clifton Hill in the Montpelier area of Brighton. The building was added to many times; none of these changes were by Lainson & Sons. Nurses' quarters were built in 1896; a two-storey extension, with isolation and

outpatient A patient is any recipient of health care services that are performed by healthcare professionals. The patient is most often ill or injured and in need of treatment by a physician, nurse, optometrist, dentist, veterinarian, or other health care ...

facilities, opened in 1904, increasing the capacity to 114 patients; additional wings were added in 1928 and 1945 (the latter opened by Princess Elizabeth, who later became Queen Elizabeth II); and the nurses' quarters became another ward in 1966.

Plans for a new hospital

The first proposal to relocate the hospital came in 2001, when the

Secretary of State for Health The secretary of state for health and social care, also referred to as the health secretary, is a secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, responsible for the work of the Department of Health and Social Care. The incumbent ...

Alan Milburn Alan Milburn (born 27 January 1958) is a British Labour Party politician who was Member of Parliament (MP) for Darlington from 1992 to 2010. He served for five years in the Cabinet, first as Chief Secretary to the Treasury from 1998 to 1999, a ...

allocated £28 million to move its services to the

site in Eastern Road in the Kemptown area. The money was part of a £1,100-million hospital-building programme which the Labour government intended to fund through the use of

public–private partnership A public–private partnership (PPP, 3P, or P3) is a long-term arrangement between a government and private sector institutions.Hodge, G. A and Greve, C. (2007), Public–Private Partnerships: An International Performance Review, Public Adminis ...

s. The scheme was put on hold for nearly a year until February 2002, when the government confirmed that £25 million was available and permitted the

NHS trust An NHS trust is an organisational unit within the National Health Services of England and Wales, generally serving either a geographical area or a specialised function (such as an ambulance service). In any particular location there may be several ...

responsible for the Royal Alexandra (at the time, the Brighton Health Care NHS Trust) to seek a private finance partner. In August 2002, the trust put the contract for the new hospital's design and construction out to competitive tender. Applications were received from 26 companies; the trust selected a shortlist of four from these in October 2002. Architecture firm

Building Design Partnership Building Design Partnership Ltd, doing business as BDP, is a firm of architects and engineers employing over 900 staff in the United Kingdom and internationally. History BDP was founded in 1961 by George Grenfell-Baines with architects Bill White ...

and the European division of Japanese company

Kajima is one of the oldest and largest construction companies in Japan. Founded in 1840, the company has its headquarters in Motoakasaka, Minato, Tokyo. The company is known for its DIB-200 proposal. The company stock is traded on four leading Ja ...

were selected for the design and construction processes respectively.

Recent history of the Dyke Road site

Details of the new building were announced in January 2004—at which point it was also stated that Lainson's buildings on the Dyke Road site would be demolished. Three operating theatres, an

intensive care unit 220px, Intensive care unit An intensive care unit (ICU), also known as an intensive therapy unit or intensive treatment unit (ITU) or critical care unit (CCU), is a special department of a hospital or health care facility that provides intensi ...

, X-ray facilities and 100 beds were planned. Meanwhile, developers expressed interest in the Dyke Road site, hoping to acquire and demolish the hospital and redevelop the prime central location with flats. Housebuilder

Taylor Wimpey Taylor Wimpey plc (formerly Taylor Woodrow plc) is one of the largest home construction companies in the United Kingdom. The company was created from the merger of rivals Taylor Woodrow and George Wimpey on 3 July 2007. It is listed on the Lo ...

paid £10 million for the site in December 2006, and planned to build a mixture of houses and flats (including some

affordable housing Affordable housing is housing which is deemed affordable to those with a household income at or below the median as rated by the national government or a local government by a recognized housing affordability index. Most of the literature on af ...

); they submitted a

planning application Planning permission or developmental approval refers to the approval needed for construction or expansion (including significant renovation), and sometimes for demolition, in some jurisdictions. It is usually given in the form of a building perm ...

for a 149-unit development incorporating a doctor's surgery, but Brighton & Hove City Council refused

in December 2008 and again (on appeal) in June 2009. The planning officer who made the decision stated that the proposed development was too large in scale for the site, affected nearby open space and appeared "bulky ndoverbearing". The majority of local residents wanted the old buildings to be retained, according to a locally produced survey earlier in 2006, and a residents' association applied to

English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, medieval castles, Roman forts and country houses. The charity states that i ...

for the granting of listed status, which would have given protection against demolition and significant alteration. This was not granted, because Lainson's original building had been altered so much that its original architectural character had been lost, but its situation within the Montpelier and Clifton Hill conservation area still gave some protection. (The council's Conservation Area Character Statement of 2005 stated that the hospital was "an important part of Brighton life and a well known local landmark".) In March 2010, the council published a planning statement which required the main building (Lainson's original) to be retained as part of any future redevelopment of the site. Later buildings, such as the former nurses' accommodation, were not covered by this. Taylor Wimpey submitted new plans to retain Lainson's main building but use most of the site for housing. These were approved by Brighton and Hove City Council in February 2011. Work could not start, though, until the council reached agreement with the company over £350,000 of funding towards educational and transport improvements. Several months later, when development had still taken place, the building was falling into decay and was reportedly close to collapse, as squatters and thieves regularly broke in to occupy the building and strip lead from the roof. This prompted the council to serve notice on Taylor Wimpey to tidy the site, make it secure and improve the appearance of the buildings.

Royal Sussex County Hospital site

Construction of the new hospital started in July 2004 and cost £36 million. The new building opened in June 2007, and the Dyke Road site was officially closed on 22 June 2007. To make way for the new facilities, the Royal Sussex County Hospital's renal unit had to be demolished; it was rebuilt on top of the

multi-storey car park A multistorey car park ( British and Singapore English) or parking garage (American English), also called a multistory, parking building, parking structure, parkade (mainly Canadian), parking ramp, parking deck or indoor parking, is a bui ...

. On 31 January 2012, comedian Steve Coogan opened a paediatric accident and emergency unit—Southeast England's first such department dedicated to children. The accident and emergency department at the Royal Sussex County Hospital had previously treated both adults and children. The new hospital won an award for the "Operational Project with the Best Design" at the Public Private Finance Awards in 2008, and won the 2008 Prime Minister's Better Public Building Award—a government award sponsored by the

Office of Government Commerce The Office of Government Commerce (OGC) was a UK Government Office established as part of HM Treasury in 2000. It was moved into the Efficiency and Reform Group of the Cabinet Office in 2010, before being closed in 2011. Overview A ''Review of ...

and the

Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment The Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) was an executive non-departmental public body of the UK government, established in 1999. It was funded by both the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Department for C ...

. Judges considered that the design was cleverly executed on a difficult site, and incorporated elements appropriate to its seaside setting. , the Royal Alexandra Hospital is one of 27 children's hospitals in Great Britain.

Architecture

Thomas Lainson's building of 1880–81 was in a

Shavian The Shavian alphabet (; also known as the Shaw alphabet) is an alphabet conceived as a way to provide simple, phonemic orthography for the English language to replace the difficulties of English orthography, conventional spelling using the E ...

interpretation of the Queen Anne style, which he and his sons used again in later buildings in the area (such as the Belgrave Hotel of 1882 and in their work on the Vallance Estate in

Hove Hove is a seaside resort and one of the two main parts of the city of Brighton and Hove, along with Brighton in East Sussex, England. Originally a "small but ancient fishing village" surrounded by open farmland, it grew rapidly in the 19th c ...

in the early 1890s). The three-storey building is mostly of red brick with some

dressings. Lainson made extensive use of ornate decorative mouldings on the east-facing main façade, which is not symmetrical and has a

Dutch gable A Dutch gable or Flemish gable is a gable whose sides have a shape made up of one or more curves and has a pediment at the top. The gable may be an entirely decorative projection above a flat section of roof line, or may be the termination of a ...

. Another decorative feature was a

cartouche In Egyptian hieroglyphs, a cartouche is an oval with a line at one end tangent to it, indicating that the text enclosed is a royal name. The first examples of the cartouche are associated with pharaohs at the end of the Third Dynasty, but the f ...

which commemorated the Royal Family members present at the opening. The south-facing secondary façade has conventional

gable A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...

s, large chimneys and a pair of

cupola In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, most often dome-like, tall structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome. The word derives, via Italian, fro ...

-topped turrets at one end. Another local firm,

Clayton & Black Clayton & Black were a firm of architects and surveyors from Brighton, part of the English city of Brighton and Hove. In a career spanning the Victorian, Edwardian and interwar eras, they were responsible for designing and constructing an eclec ...

, added a

colonnade In classical architecture, a colonnade is a long sequence of columns joined by their entablature, often free-standing, or part of a building. Paired or multiple pairs of columns are normally employed in a colonnade which can be straight or cur ...

on this side in 1906. In 1927, the north side was extended in a style which matched Lainson's work: W.H. Overton's design included gables with half-timbering and tile-hanging. The 1904 extension, consisting of isolation facilities and outpatients' accommodation, was in the Vernacular/Domestic style with half-timbered gables with jettying, prominent

mullion A mullion is a vertical element that forms a division between units of a window or screen, or is used decoratively. It is also often used as a division between double doors. When dividing adjacent window units its primary purpose is a rigid supp ...

s and transoms to the

bay window A bay window is a window space projecting outward from the main walls of a building and forming a bay in a room. Types Bay window is a generic term for all protruding window constructions, regardless of whether they are curved or angular, or ...

s, and a small tower. The new hospital, designed by

, is in the form of an ark, and has a "nautical theme" appropriate to the seafront location. The exterior has curved corners and is clad in white

precast concrete Precast concrete is a construction product produced by casting concrete in a reusable mold or "form" which is then cured in a controlled environment, transported to the construction site and maneuvered into place; examples include precast bea ...

, intended to evoke the painted stucco which is closely associated with Brighton's seafront

Regency architecture Regency architecture encompasses classical buildings built in the United Kingdom during the Regency era in the early 19th century when George IV was Prince Regent, and also to earlier and later buildings following the same style. The period co ...

. The

fenestration Fenestration may refer to: * Fenestration (architecture), the design, construction, or presence of openings in a building * Used in relation to fenestra in anatomy, medicine and biology * Fenestration, holes in the rudder A rudder is a primar ...

is irregular: many windows are at a low level to improve visibility for children. The building has a naturally lit central

atrium Atrium may refer to: Anatomy * Atrium (heart), an anatomical structure of the heart * Atrium, the genital structure next to the genital aperture in the reproductive system of gastropods * Atrium of the ventricular system of the brain * Pulmona ...

Patron

Since 1954, the hospital's patron has been Princess Alexandra, The Honourable Lady Ogilvy (styled Princess Alexandra of Kent until 1963).

Notes

References

Bibliography

* * *

External links

Information on hospital on NHS website.BSUH Royal Alexandra Hospital
{{authority control NHS hospitals in England Hospital buildings completed in 1881 Hospital buildings completed in 2007 Buildings and structures in Brighton and Hove Hospitals in East Sussex Children's hospitals in the United Kingdom 1868 establishments in England